Sunday 14th August - Life in Addis

Having looked back through the blog, I have noticed that I have not really given you any detail of our hosts or our location in Addis Ababa

We are staying with a wonderful family;  Serawit (called Weet) and Azeb and their 13 year old daughter Dodi, who live in a district called Lebu on the southern edge of Addis Ababa.

Lebu is a district currently undergoing heavy redevelopment, with many buildings in different stages of construction. Unlike in the UK, where they build the roads first and then erect the houses, here they seem to start building without the necessary roads. As we are currently in the rainy season (2-4 hours of rain per day, this causes the dirt tracks to turn into muddy slides, puddles and streams. Yet within 2 hours of the sun coming out most of the road is dry again....except for the ever-growing puddle/pond/lake at the lower end of the road....affectionately known as Lake Lebu.

Serawit, Azeb and Dodi have been great and made us feel incredibly welcome. David has thoroughly enjoyed playing x-box Fifa 10 and joined “Weet” yesterday to play football with the local kids.

Azeb is a wonderful host and is always smiling, although this might just be at the antics of the “Fereng” (foreigners) staying in her house. Dodi is a lively 13 year old who is fantastic at whipping up pancakes and muffins and who is enjoying learning card tricks with David (much to his delight.) She and Abi are sharing a bedroom so in the evening it’s like entering a girlie dormitory...They seem to be having a lot of fun!

The roads in Addis Ababa are en experience in themselves: our main form of transport is the minivan taxi....David has named them the “Crazy Buses”. These taxi’s pack in as many people as is physically possible, and then hurtle around the roads, attempting to avoid the cows, horses, goats and donkeys that seem to roam freely. They then instantly stop whenever someone seems mildly interested in a ride. We have also seen these taxis driving the wrong way down dual carriageways along with the horse-drawn rickshaws who seem to make up their own rules. U-turns are also very common and obviously legal. The general approach to driving seems to be “Drive hard and honk loudly”, and as most speedometers don’t work anymore it’s basically a case of hang on tight!

This morning we attended the Newfrontiers church in Addis (Eden Genet Church), this was a great experience as all the songs were in Amharic (so we didn’t have a clue what was being sung), but the Spirit of God was obviously present and we had a great  time of fellowship with them.

This afternoon Vanessa and Abi decided to treat our hosts to some English cooking and attempted to make a Victoria Sandwich cake. This proved to be an interesting experiment as cakes don’t “rise” the same at 2000m! It was more like a pudding than a cake and Dodi chuckled when she saw it. Everyone enjoyed it but needed a large glass of water to wash it down!! Oh well...it’s the thought that counts.

David and I sat down with Weet to watch the Chelsea match, which was standing at 0-0 after 91 minutes and Chelsea having a freekick on the edge of the area....David (a Chelsea fan) was getting excited.....and then the power went off!!!! So we decamped outside and started an impromptu kick-around with the local kids ....a great time of fun with strange looks from all the passers-by who were puzzled at the sight of these weird fereng. We started a conversation with some of them and were invited into their home, where we were amply supplied with Pepsi, popcorn and coffee (a local delicacy made by roasting the beans on an open fire, crushing them by hand to make powder and then boiling in water over the open fire....this is server is very small cups – about the size of a childs play teacup). David has really taken to this - but he has to have 3 spoons of sugar with it, making it taste more like caramel!!

We are all agreed that the Ethiopian people are wonderful people, very helpful, caring and hospitable.